Behind the Aam Aadmi Party’s formidable pushback against the Bharatiya Janata Party riding the crest of the incredible Modi wave were 11 intrepid men and one woman. Together constituting the Delhi Election Campaign Committee of AAP, they set to work nearly seven months before Delhi voted, hoping to thwart the BJP thoroughbred from rampaging through the city ‒ or at least ensuring that it huffed and puffed and sweated as it attempted to win yet another race for a state assembly.
Regardless of whether the Delhi election results on Tuesday echo the exit polls findings, the 12 members of the DECC have definitely punctured the certitude of the BJP and thrown its leaders in convulsions at the possibility of an upset. The DECC had as its head Arvind Kejriwal, the party’s face and source of verve, who handpicked the other 11 members, defining the responsibility of each and ensuring that they together added energy to what turned out to be an astonishing campaign. Ironically, some of these 12 members, and their efforts, aren’t known by even diehard AAP supporters, whose knowledge about the intricacies of politics is based on what they see on TV.
For instance, how many would know about Ashish Talwar, who is credited with structuring the party and managing the campaign, or former BBC journalist Nagendar Sharma, who spearheaded AAP’s media policy and outreach, or Deepak Bajpai, who orchestrated the party’s video onslaught, or, Durgesh Pathak, who ensured the booth committees were in a fine fettle, or Richa Mishra Pandey, the sole woman representative on the DECC? Behind the scenes they and others worked to neutralise the BJP’s overflowing war-chest and decades of experience at fighting elections.
Projecting the message
Elections in India have increasingly become a battle of perceptions, communicated to the masses through the media. It was imperative, therefore, to ensure that all the leaders were in sync and none spoke at cross-purposes, irrespective of murmurs of difference surfacing in the party, an inevitable outcome of the AAP’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha elections.
So every day for months, at 9 am sharp, a conference call was held among those responsible for interacting with the media, to discuss the stories that were grabbing the headlines and spelling out the AAP’s position on them. Acutely conscious of the media being spellbound by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the AAP’s favoured strategy was to turn to social media to articulate its views, in the hope of pressuring TV channels and newspapers to provide coverage to the party. Remember, these were the months during which the pundits had written off AAP. A BBM group comprising spokespersons, TV panelists, and select leaders was created to keep everyone in the loop – and to ensure no discordant note was struck.
Also hastened was the effort to restructure the party, a task undertaken before the Lok Sabha election. When AAP was floated in 2012, Kejriwal invited Ashish Talwar, who had been in the Congress till 2007, to join. The experience Talwar had garnered in India’s Grand Old Party was utilised in 2013 to create a party structure mimicking that of mainstream political formations – that is, overlapping layers of committees from Vidhan Sabha to ward to booth levels. But AAP innovated on this traditional arrangement to create zones, each typically consisting of 10-12 booths.
In 2014, yet another layer was added – a person in charge of the polling centre, each of which has three or four polling booths. There are roughly 3,500 polling centers and around 12,000 polling booths in Delhi. This meant a veritable army of volunteers had to be roped into AAP, and micro-management had to be enhanced. To enthuse them, Kejriwal visited each constituency as polling centre supervisors were appointed. “The polling centers gave us coverage of nearly 99% of Delhi’s electorate,” said Talwar. “But it is not I alone who built it. It takes thousands of people to build a party structure, brick by brick.”
The shortlist
Once the footsoldiers had taken position, two DECC members – Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai – began the search for suitable candidates. The list of candidates for every constituency was discussed threadbare in the DECC and voted upon. In some cases, even a majority vote for a candidate was followed by a survey to elicit whether he or she was indeed the most winnable candidate. It was because of this technique of double-checking, at least in one instance, that a person who had barely managed two votes was assigned the AAP ticket. In this case, Manish Sisodia had suggested taking recourse to a survey, even though he had himself voted against the person.
To provide vigour to their campaign to stage a comeback, to project that the party was willing to recalibrate its message to express the aspirations of the people, AAP held what it called the Delhi Dialogue, a process of interacting with residents to find out what they were agitated about. Many of these conversations were to find an echo in the AAP’s manifesto, of which Ashish Khetan was the principal architect. Perhaps his idea of advancing educational loan helped woo back sections of the middle class, then in thrall to Modi.
Once the countdown began to election day on February 7, AAP concentrated its focus on maximising the dividends it could reap from the popularity of Kejriwal. “He is a total vote-converter – the more people see him, the more votes he pulls for the party,” said Talwar. “They want to see him, shake his hands, wave at him. And Arvind is brilliant among people. His persona and conduct enable the aam aadmi to identify with him.” It was for this reason Talwar in 2013 had thought of roadshow, a cost-effective mechanism involving two vehicles, one of which would have Kejriwal standing in an open jeep waving at people crowding the streets.
This year, the roadshow was dispensed with, largely because the party didn’t have adequate time for it. Instead, AAP concentrated on organising the Jan Sabha, which was meticulously planned by Talwar and Dilip Pandey, another DECC member. Every candidate wishing to have Kejriwal in his or her constituency – and they all wanted him – was expected to intimate the campaign committee ten days in advance. In this period, they were required to choose the venue, and work to ensure robust participation. An advance team would visit the area 96 hours before Kejriwal’s scheduled address to the Jan Sabha. Since permission from authorities has to be sought before 48 hours for holding a meeting, the advance team could opt for, say, a change of venue in case of being dissatisfied with the one chosen.
Reaching out
Undoubtedly, the Jan Sabhas were a tremendous success, attracting on an average nearly 5,000-6,000 people. From December 1, Kejriwal addressed nearly three or four such sabhas every day. In effect, he was reaching out to anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 people each day. Contrast this to the attendance at all of Modi’s four rallies, beginning January 31, each of which pulled in roughly 20,000 people. In other words, the BJP relied on Modi to get them votes – but he was, for most part, a distant, even a virtual figure whom voters couldn’t connect with.
Modi’s popularity was further neutralised because the February 7 election was about electing a state government, a chief minister. When the BJP relealised this belatedly, it made Kiran Bedi its face. It took the DECC by surprise, but the consensus among its members was not to lose their nerve, to refrain from changing their script midway, from turning the positive campaign they had mounted into a negative one, and to refrain from firing volleys against Bedi.
Yet this did not deter the DECC from being nimble-footed. So when the Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid declared the Muslims should vote the AAP, DECC member and state convenor Ashutosh was quick the reject the offer of support. AAP insiders also credit Ashutosh for adopting guerrilla tactics on social media, levelling a charge against the BJP almost every day, at times perhaps exaggerated, and entangling its leaders in a battle of attrition.
Among all the treasurers of political parties, AAP’s Pankaj Gupta is perhaps the least likely to make voters think that he is involved in wheeling and dealing, presiding as he does over a kitty into which the flow of funds has always been a trickle. This time AAP was so short of money that the DECC, of which Gupta is a member, had to organise 30 fundraisers, roping in people to pay Rs 20,000 for having, say, tea with Kejriwal – and risking the wrath of captious critics who thought it was too steep a price to charge.
The exit polls predicting an AAP sweep may yet go wrong when the results are announced on Tuesday, but this wouldn’t diminish the astonishment at the ability of 11 men and a woman to act like a ragtag group of guerrillas effectively battling a well-equipped army.
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.
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Regardless of whether the Delhi election results on Tuesday echo the exit polls findings, the 12 members of the DECC have definitely punctured the certitude of the BJP and thrown its leaders in convulsions at the possibility of an upset. The DECC had as its head Arvind Kejriwal, the party’s face and source of verve, who handpicked the other 11 members, defining the responsibility of each and ensuring that they together added energy to what turned out to be an astonishing campaign. Ironically, some of these 12 members, and their efforts, aren’t known by even diehard AAP supporters, whose knowledge about the intricacies of politics is based on what they see on TV.
For instance, how many would know about Ashish Talwar, who is credited with structuring the party and managing the campaign, or former BBC journalist Nagendar Sharma, who spearheaded AAP’s media policy and outreach, or Deepak Bajpai, who orchestrated the party’s video onslaught, or, Durgesh Pathak, who ensured the booth committees were in a fine fettle, or Richa Mishra Pandey, the sole woman representative on the DECC? Behind the scenes they and others worked to neutralise the BJP’s overflowing war-chest and decades of experience at fighting elections.
Projecting the message
Elections in India have increasingly become a battle of perceptions, communicated to the masses through the media. It was imperative, therefore, to ensure that all the leaders were in sync and none spoke at cross-purposes, irrespective of murmurs of difference surfacing in the party, an inevitable outcome of the AAP’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha elections.
So every day for months, at 9 am sharp, a conference call was held among those responsible for interacting with the media, to discuss the stories that were grabbing the headlines and spelling out the AAP’s position on them. Acutely conscious of the media being spellbound by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the AAP’s favoured strategy was to turn to social media to articulate its views, in the hope of pressuring TV channels and newspapers to provide coverage to the party. Remember, these were the months during which the pundits had written off AAP. A BBM group comprising spokespersons, TV panelists, and select leaders was created to keep everyone in the loop – and to ensure no discordant note was struck.
Also hastened was the effort to restructure the party, a task undertaken before the Lok Sabha election. When AAP was floated in 2012, Kejriwal invited Ashish Talwar, who had been in the Congress till 2007, to join. The experience Talwar had garnered in India’s Grand Old Party was utilised in 2013 to create a party structure mimicking that of mainstream political formations – that is, overlapping layers of committees from Vidhan Sabha to ward to booth levels. But AAP innovated on this traditional arrangement to create zones, each typically consisting of 10-12 booths.
In 2014, yet another layer was added – a person in charge of the polling centre, each of which has three or four polling booths. There are roughly 3,500 polling centers and around 12,000 polling booths in Delhi. This meant a veritable army of volunteers had to be roped into AAP, and micro-management had to be enhanced. To enthuse them, Kejriwal visited each constituency as polling centre supervisors were appointed. “The polling centers gave us coverage of nearly 99% of Delhi’s electorate,” said Talwar. “But it is not I alone who built it. It takes thousands of people to build a party structure, brick by brick.”
The shortlist
Once the footsoldiers had taken position, two DECC members – Sanjay Singh and Gopal Rai – began the search for suitable candidates. The list of candidates for every constituency was discussed threadbare in the DECC and voted upon. In some cases, even a majority vote for a candidate was followed by a survey to elicit whether he or she was indeed the most winnable candidate. It was because of this technique of double-checking, at least in one instance, that a person who had barely managed two votes was assigned the AAP ticket. In this case, Manish Sisodia had suggested taking recourse to a survey, even though he had himself voted against the person.
To provide vigour to their campaign to stage a comeback, to project that the party was willing to recalibrate its message to express the aspirations of the people, AAP held what it called the Delhi Dialogue, a process of interacting with residents to find out what they were agitated about. Many of these conversations were to find an echo in the AAP’s manifesto, of which Ashish Khetan was the principal architect. Perhaps his idea of advancing educational loan helped woo back sections of the middle class, then in thrall to Modi.
Once the countdown began to election day on February 7, AAP concentrated its focus on maximising the dividends it could reap from the popularity of Kejriwal. “He is a total vote-converter – the more people see him, the more votes he pulls for the party,” said Talwar. “They want to see him, shake his hands, wave at him. And Arvind is brilliant among people. His persona and conduct enable the aam aadmi to identify with him.” It was for this reason Talwar in 2013 had thought of roadshow, a cost-effective mechanism involving two vehicles, one of which would have Kejriwal standing in an open jeep waving at people crowding the streets.
This year, the roadshow was dispensed with, largely because the party didn’t have adequate time for it. Instead, AAP concentrated on organising the Jan Sabha, which was meticulously planned by Talwar and Dilip Pandey, another DECC member. Every candidate wishing to have Kejriwal in his or her constituency – and they all wanted him – was expected to intimate the campaign committee ten days in advance. In this period, they were required to choose the venue, and work to ensure robust participation. An advance team would visit the area 96 hours before Kejriwal’s scheduled address to the Jan Sabha. Since permission from authorities has to be sought before 48 hours for holding a meeting, the advance team could opt for, say, a change of venue in case of being dissatisfied with the one chosen.
Reaching out
Undoubtedly, the Jan Sabhas were a tremendous success, attracting on an average nearly 5,000-6,000 people. From December 1, Kejriwal addressed nearly three or four such sabhas every day. In effect, he was reaching out to anywhere between 15,000 and 20,000 people each day. Contrast this to the attendance at all of Modi’s four rallies, beginning January 31, each of which pulled in roughly 20,000 people. In other words, the BJP relied on Modi to get them votes – but he was, for most part, a distant, even a virtual figure whom voters couldn’t connect with.
Modi’s popularity was further neutralised because the February 7 election was about electing a state government, a chief minister. When the BJP relealised this belatedly, it made Kiran Bedi its face. It took the DECC by surprise, but the consensus among its members was not to lose their nerve, to refrain from changing their script midway, from turning the positive campaign they had mounted into a negative one, and to refrain from firing volleys against Bedi.
Yet this did not deter the DECC from being nimble-footed. So when the Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid declared the Muslims should vote the AAP, DECC member and state convenor Ashutosh was quick the reject the offer of support. AAP insiders also credit Ashutosh for adopting guerrilla tactics on social media, levelling a charge against the BJP almost every day, at times perhaps exaggerated, and entangling its leaders in a battle of attrition.
Among all the treasurers of political parties, AAP’s Pankaj Gupta is perhaps the least likely to make voters think that he is involved in wheeling and dealing, presiding as he does over a kitty into which the flow of funds has always been a trickle. This time AAP was so short of money that the DECC, of which Gupta is a member, had to organise 30 fundraisers, roping in people to pay Rs 20,000 for having, say, tea with Kejriwal – and risking the wrath of captious critics who thought it was too steep a price to charge.
The exit polls predicting an AAP sweep may yet go wrong when the results are announced on Tuesday, but this wouldn’t diminish the astonishment at the ability of 11 men and a woman to act like a ragtag group of guerrillas effectively battling a well-equipped army.
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.